In a bid to assure a Nobel Peace Prize, Trump plans to offer Vladimir Putin eastern Ukraine in exchange for Putin’s assurance that Russia will halt its attempts to annex the rest of Ukraine at least until 2029. According to unnamed White House officials, Trump’s advisors also have urged him to consider renouncing the United States’ claim to Alaska if the Russian leader balks at the eastern Ukraine offer. “If that’s what it takes to seal a deal (and win Trump a Nobel Peace Prize), it would be well worth it,” said one advisor. “We think Putin would definitely go for it, especially if he has to cease hostilities only until 2029 (when Trump supposedly will be out of office). And it won’t be hard to persuade Trump to make the offer. He already thinks Alaska is in Russia, so he won’t view it as a concession. The difficulty will be getting Trump to stop talking about White House redecorating plans.”
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for August 2025.
This is how it goes: With or without evidence (in this case, without), the dictator declares that escalating crime and disorder threaten public safety in the capital. Such rapidly deteriorating conditions require prompt and decisive action. On this pretext, he federalizes the capital’s local police force, brings in armed troops, and declares that he will take similar actions in other cities and regions, as necessary.
In the guise of preserving public order, he directs local officials to repeal laws that he does not like and to enact stiffer penalties for law breakers. Those local officials who protest or delay are removed from office, and citizens who dissent are dispersed through state-sanctioned violence.
Other institutions of the federal government fall into line, leaving no counterweights to the authority of the dictator and his subordinates. Members of the public are rounded up–initially as potential “illegal” aliens, but later as simply disloyal threats to public order. “Deviants” are identified and punished. Despite so-called constitutional protections, the dictator threatens to expel citizens who are insufficiently loyal.
Soon, the residents of the capital and other cities get used to seeing troops on their street corners, and stop remarking on, or even noticing, the sounds of mysterious low-flying helicopters surveilling their cities at night. Elections are suspended as too perilous in light of the ongoing public emergencies. Protests turn into whispered grumbles, and resignation descends upon the resentful but cowed citizens.
Today, my newsfeed had a Reuters headline “White House defends firing of labor official as critics warn of trust erosion.” The story concerns Trump’s firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics head, Erika McEntarfer, for issuing jobs numbers that Trump didn’t like.
The press has reported this unprecedented reprisal for honestly reporting crappy job numbers as a case of “killing the messenger.” News stories also have included interviews and analyses emphasizing the importance of accurate economic data and the dangers of politicizing government data collection and reporting.
But this isn’t a case of “killing the messenger,” because it isn’t really about trying to censor bad economic news. Instead, Trump is eliminating an impediment (in the person of Ms. McEntarfer) to his political manipulation of government data. We’ll see similar political manipulation of data in government reports about other economic data, such as the impact of tariffs on prices, and in reports about non-economic issues such as vaccine effectiveness, weather, Medicaid enrollment, and global warming. For Trump and company, facts are and always will be a threat.
As for the critics’ “warn[ing] of trust erosion,” Trump and company most likely don’t see that as a threat at all. In fact, the erosion of public trust in government data is the goal of Trump’s actions. Trump’s critics–at least in their public statements–simply have not come to grips with the simple facts that Trump wants to sow chaos and division, and he wants to break things, especially things that have any source of authority that isn’t named “Donald J. Trump.”
So when the press and critics “warn” Trump and his minions that people may start to distrust government statistics, his reaction is likely to be “Good. That’s the goal.”
Tags: Bureau of Labor Statistics, data, facts, McEntarfer, Trump